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I'm over at Midwest Parents this week too! More Heather...just what you've always wanted!

How Do You Control the Summer Calendar?

So begins the extra busy time of year. From about mid-April the weeks begin to fill with even more obligations than before. It's like the time from Thanksgiving through New Year's. Everyone has plans. You're invited to graduations, birthday parties, picnics, what-have-you. Before you know it you look at the calendar and notice you have maybe 3 "free" weekends during the summer and you just know that those will be filled too because really it is only May and we are lucky enough that some people seem to want to spend time with us. (And yes I realize I changed pronouns in that sentence. Sue me.)

There are thoughts that we should decline invitations so that we can just relax, but if it is at all possible, we try to attend any events we're invited to share in simply because we feel honored to be included. When I take my son to a classmate's party and discover he is one of only 3 other guests (and the only boy) it speaks volumes to me about the kind of person he is. He was chosen out of all the other kids to celebrate a little girl's birthday.

On that same order, we appreciate every person who chooses to celebrate with us. My kids think long and hard about who they want to invite to their parties and feel appropriately pleased when those friends are able and willing to come to the parties.

But there are still times that I look at the calendar and sigh and think wouldn't it be wonderful to have a "free" weekend? How do you decide which invites to accept and which to decline? Do you ever decline even though you have nothing else planned?

Also, I'm posting at Midwest Parents this week. Please come see me there too!

Preparations

I'm over at Midwest Parents today (and all week) preparing for Christmas...please visit me there!

Random Thoughts #41

1. The baby got her first dose of the H1N1 vaccine. Apparently kids up to age 10 have to have two doses, 1 month apart. So, poor D will get 3 flu shots this year. I wish they would tell you that when you schedule the first shot, I would have scheduled the second one while I was on the phone the first time since it took 30 minutes of waiting to get the first one scheduled. But that would be way too convenient for people I suppose.
2. Due to a scheduling snafu, I will be posting over at Midwest Parents again next week. Apparently I forgot the first week of November. I hope there wasn't a subconscious or clairvoyant reason that I wanted to forget next week! Have you been to the new Midwest Parents yet? We have tips for running a healthy and happy family, Wordless Wednesday, Thursday Good Reads, and recipes on Fridays. With seven bloggers, you're sure to find someone new you'll enjoy reading!
3. Our trees have arrived for the annual Festival of Trees and decorating is scheduled to commence next week. It's always a lot of work for me, but it's fun too (when I'm not getting stressed out). Last year D rode in the sling when we were putting the trees up in the Civic Center. I suppose this year she'll have to sit in the stroller while I put the finishing touches on the tree. She still fits in the sling too, so I guess that's still an option too.
4. The big kids are having their "character parade" at school this afternoon. D is going to wear one of her costumes when we go watch too. They are so excited. Hopefully it's not raining so they can parade outside.
5. I wonder if I'll remember that Daylight Savings Time ends this weekend? Extra hour of sleep!

I Tried!

Well, I'd planned to actually write a post of a little substance, but I wanted to also include a photo to illustrate my post (it seems very necessary for the post) and I don't know if it's Blogger or me or my computer, but I can't post any photos...so that idea is out. And apparently I'm too lazy to write about something else. (And interestingly, I could post a photo on another blog, through blogger, but still can't post one here. Ahhh, technology!)

Instead I'll send you over to Midwest Parents. The intros are over and now starts the regular posts, and it just so happens that I'm the blogger this week. Hope you'll come see what's going on there this week, and in the coming weeks!

Something That Took My Breath Away

I'm still not feeling the greatest, but I feel a little less like I want to die, so that's a plus.

A couple of weeks ago we had school conferences for the big kids. Miss M's teacher let us take home some of her work books to look at. One of the workbooks that M has at school is a vocabulary notebook. They're supposed to write the vocabulary word, then draw a picture that will help them remember what the word means.

This one brought tears to my eyes.
I think she should have drawn herself.

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We're continuing to introduce our bloggers over at Midwest Parents this week! Hope you'll stop by and meet them!

MP Haiku

An old friend is back.
Visit us over there please.
You know you want to.

Reborn?

We are revamping Midwest Parents and have a plan in place for a new structure and more posting. We'll have some of the same writers, and some new writers too. We're looking to re-launch the blog in October. I think the blog will appeal to more readers than just those of us in the Midwest, but I want to keep the contributors to Midwesterners.

We're looking for a few more bloggers to join us. If you are in parent who happens to live in the Midwest and would like more information about what this commitment will entail, shoot me an email and I'll let you know what the plan is. You do not have to have a blog already. If you're looking to try out this blogging thing, this might be just the thing to get your feet wet.

I'm excited to see what happens with MP. I think it will be a good place to be.

Saving or Spending?

Are you of the mind to buy things when they're on sale and stockpile them in order to save money? Or do you look at people who do that and say No, you're just spending money you wouldn't have otherwise if it wasn't on sale.

I haven't quite decided what it is that I do. Probably a little of both...a little saving money and sometimes just spending money that I wouldn't have.

I really am trying to save us money these days...

Hop on over to Midwest Parents to read what I'm doing. Let's compare notes.

A Love Affair to Remember

I love shopping at Target. If you have one near you and you don't spend at least $100 every time you step foot in the doors you are a much, much stronger person than I.

I'm writing about it over at Midwest Parents today. Please come and check it out!

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I think I forgot to mention...congrats to Meg who won the beautiful rosary made by Gunfighter!

Random Thoughts #29

• I was fairly certain trying to get my son to write his name and a friend's name on each of 14 Valentines would be very, very painful. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Some of them are even legible.
• The baby looks closer and closer to walking every day. I hope that I am wrong. She is only 8 1/2 months old.
• I've been running (with the Wii Fit game) almost every day for at least 10 minutes for the last 4 days. I feel slightly less like dying each time I run. Good times.
• I have not lost any weight because all this exercising make me hungry.
• Wondering if I should cut back on exercising so that I cut back on eating.
• I have 47,872 things to do but because I'm doing this exercising it seems like I have no time to do anything else.
• I'm very good at rationalizing why I shouldn't be exercising.
• Although my jeans do feel like they are going to fall down so I'm not sure why the scale has to be all mean and say that I haven't lost any weight (and some days tells me I've gained weight! Bastard.)
• My husband and I sort of have a date on Friday. M and K are going to a dance camp night for a couple of hours so Craig and I are planning to go out to eat. We'll have the baby chaperon.
• Naturally, Craig is sick. I think he might be allergic to spending time with me.
• My son is covered in bruises. I'm beginning to worry.
• He is clumsy, but still.
• I bought two African Violet plants for my kids to give to their church secret Valentines.
• My son's Valentine turned out to be a teenage boy. I'm pretty sure he was thrilled with the plant.
• I'm wondering why the baby slept better as a newborn than she does now.
• It's supposed to be almost 50 degrees here today. Thinking about getting out my swimsuit. Would not put it on because that would just look icky. And silly. Because I haven't lost any weight.
• I can't figure out why every single track on Prince's album Purple Rain is marked explicit on iTunes. Obviously all the naughty stuff was over my head as a kid.
• I still need one more sponsor for Aweigh. You can be a blogger, have an etsy shop, a commercial business, whatever. Email me and/or leave a comment if you're interested.

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I'm sending you over to Midwest Parents again because we have a very special guest poster whom many of you probably already know well!

Baby it's COLD outside

After finally getting Miss M to school yesterday afternoon, (a whole different story) and then K to his preschool, Ms. D and I had a couple of hours without big kids that flew by. She enjoyed crawling around on the floor without an older sibling repositioning her away from the big kid toys (because the big kid toys were all put away) until she crawled just out of my sight. I heard a gagging sound and rushed to find her. She had found a piece of paper, put it in her mouth and started to choke on it.

I turned her on her stomach and rapped on her back a few times in an effort to dislodge the offending paper to no avail. She was still breathing, and still trying to purge the paper herself, so I wasn't panicked at that point. I didn't want to put my fingers in her mouth to do the "sweep" to remove the object because I knew it was paper and I feared pushing it further into her throat. Ms. D is tiny, and she has gotten various (supposedly non-choke-able) objects stuck in her mouth.

I moved her to an area where I could see better and thumped her back a few more times, trying to remain calm. She continued to gag and spit, bubbly drool was flowing from her mouth which I took as a good thing since there was still air for her to gag with and the bubbles had to get air from somewhere. After 4 or 5 thumps she gaged out a 2 x 2 scrap of paper.

I realize even more how dangerous this house with two older siblings is for a baby and I'm unsure how to keep her safe. There are pieces of toys everywhere in spots I would not think to look. I'm thinking we'll need to do a major purge with all small part toys being confined (in theory) to big kid bedrooms. A daunting task along with all the other major cleaning I need to do.

But today school is cancelled. It's in the dangerously cold temperature range. We'll be painting, baking bread and cookies, perhaps play PlayDoh.

Or we could get even more desperate. Check out what we have done previous winters when the mercury has dipped too low to go outside over at Midwest Parents.

Doing it again all over again

Yep. Making the torture official again. I will be posting every day in November. Although I've pretty much been posting every day for a few weeks now anyway.

Consider yourselves warned.

Actually, I really like writing every day if I can think of something to say. But then there are days like today where ... well, not so much to say.

Or maybe it's more like no time to say it.

I'm working on a custom tutu that someone ordered from my shop and I'm also working on 2 dozen baby announcements for my friend's little sister.

Baby D is pretty much determined that I cannot work on any of these things. I think she's teething pretty hard right now. Poor peanut.

I tend to get things done if I have a deadline though, so pressure is good for me. I might panic but I always manage to get things done. If I don't have a deadline I procrastinate. Actually I procrastinate anyway but then I do the task at the last minute.

I'm fun like that.

So this is my long-winded way of saying I'm participating in the 3rd annual National Blog Posting Month. It's my plan to write some fiction during the month but you know how that goes.

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Hey! Have you checked things out over at Midwest Parents lately? It gets kind of lonely over there sometimes. Just because we're writing about the Midwest doesn't mean that you have to live here to read!

Morning Monsters

I'm not here today...I'm over at Midwest Parents where I'm writing about how I try to tame the chaos of the morning...

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Also, don't forget the book giveaway!

Nursing...Without Nurses

When my first child, my daughter M, was born she didn’t nurse like my other two children have. This refusal to nurse, I strongly believe, was no fault of hers, but more the result of a nurse who didn’t take the time to explain what needed to be done to a (in retrospect) naïve new mother. Instead this nurse took my boob in one hand and my baby’s head in the other and repeatedly tried to shove the two together over the course of more than one hour.

Hop over to Midwest Parents for the whole story...

Fixed the link! Sorry about that!

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Hey, we're posting over there more often. Soon, we'll be posting Monday-Friday, adding recipes to our schedule! Check us out!

Come find me!

I'm not here today!

Find me here.

Big May

May is a big month for me now that I’m a mom. Well, it always has been an important month to me since I was born in May.

This year, however, May brings some firsts, and lasts.

This Sunday will be my last Mother’s Day as (follow me to read the rest!)

Where Have all the Manners Gone?

Since when is it okay to let a very obviously pregnant woman with one or two kids in tow hold the door open for multiple people who don’t bother to even look at her, let alone say “thank you?”


Follow me for the rest of the story...

I'll show you mine if you show me yours

Okay, I actually already did.

We're starting a new project over at Midwest Parents. Hope you can join us!

It's a...It's a... Part 2

Well, we had the third ultrasound today. Thankfully, baby's heart looks good (as well as the rest of baby) and even measures a little bit ahead of the game. The tech thought the due date would be May 26th instead of May 28th based on today's measurements. Estimated weight is about 2 lbs. 3 oz. Baby's chest was going up and down, practicing breathing already. Baby's hand was also up by the mouth, sucking a thumb or some fingers.

And, this time, the butt was up by my ribs this time and no feet or other appendages were blocking our view.

We saw some folds.

It's a girl. Just like the kids have said all along.

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Go read my post at Midwest Parents today too! I'm asking if your kids are as spoiled as mine...